“To be able to dream as big as you’d like to dream,” says Marlee Matlin.

Except she didn’t actually say it. An interpreter did. Marlee Matlin is profoundly deaf and uses American Sign language.

She is the only deaf performer ever to win an Academy Award for Best Actress.

Such was the inspiration on display at National We Day. Around 16,000 young people filled the Canadian Tire Centre to hear from guests ranging from Matlin to the Governor General of Canada to Canadian rapper Kardinal Offishall to the grandson of Nelson Mandela.

We Day is an annual multi-media presentation of musicians and motivational speakers designed to inspire and empower youth at stops across North America. This year’s National We Day marked the 50th such event in the past seven years.

So does it work? Do the young people, who dance to the music and cheer loudly at every inspirational comment, actually translate that fervour into social action?

Spencer West says yes.

West is an inspirational figure in his own right, a man with no legs who climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro on his hands. He’s spoken at 48 of the 50 We Day events.

And he’s convinced kids are listening. “You know, donating well over $30-million for local and global charities. Over 14-million pounds of food donated to local and global food banks over the past seven years because of We Day. I think the kids are doing a pretty good job,” he says.

The kids who attended National We Day couldn’t buy a ticket. They had to earn it by taking part in projects to affect social change. “I love it,” says Kelsey MacDonald of St. Francis Xavier High School in Hammond, Ontario. ”It’s so inspiring because there are all these people talking about helping people.”

At least one group in the audience had their own inspiring story. Students from Sir Winston Churchill High School in Thunder Bay, Ontario had just returned from volunteering in Equador when they received a pleasant surprise. West Jet offered to fly them, free of charge, to Ottawa for National We Day. “After we found out… we ran around the school doing laps,” says Natasha Azad. “We were like, we’re going to We Day!”

And now, they’re inspired to volunteer all over again. “It’s really impacted me,” says Zachary Syrja. “And it’s really, really made me want to do something in my community.”